Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
